Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010also called Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010massive oil spill caused by an April 20, 2010, explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig—located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 41 miles (66 km) off the coast of Louisiana—and its subsequent sinking on April 22.

The explosion

The Deepwater Horizon rig, owned and operated by offshore-oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by oil company BP, was situated in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon, a valley in the continental shelf. The oil well over which it was positioned was located on the seabed 4,993 feet (1,522 metres) below the surface and extended approximately 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) into the rock. On the night of April 20, a surge of natural gas blasted through a concrete cap recently installed to seal the well for later use. The gas traveled up the rig’s riser to the platform, where it ignited, killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The rig capsized and sank on the morning of April 22, rupturing the riser,

the tube

through which drilling mud was injected in order to counteract the upward pressure of oil and natural gas. Without the opposing force, oil began to discharge into the gulf.

Oil leaks and cleanup efforts

Although BP attempted to activate the rig’s blowout preventer (BOP), a fail-safe mechanism designed to close the channel through which oil was drawn, the device malfunctioned. Efforts in May to place a containment dome over the largest leak in the broken riser were thwarted by the buoyant action of gas hydrates formed by the reaction of natural gas and cold water. When an attempt to employ a “top kill,” whereby drilling mud was pumped into the well to stanch the flow of oil, also failed, BP turned in early June to an apparatus called the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) cap. With the damaged riser shorn from the LMRP—the top segment of the BOP—the cap was lowered into place. Though fitted loosely over the BOP and allowing some oil to escape, the cap enabled BP to siphon approximately

25

15,000 barrels of oil per day to a tanker. The addition of an ancillary collection system comprising several devices, also tapped into the BOP, increased the collection rate to approximately 25,000 barrels of oil a day.

The LMRP cap was removed for several days in early July so that a more permanent seal could be installed; this capping stack was in place by July 12. The drilling of two relief wells—channels paralleling and eventually intersecting the original well—was considered the most likely means of permanently sealing the leak. Begun in May, the wells were expected to be completed in August. In a maneuver known as a “bottom kill,” material would be pumped through these channels to the original well to block erupting oil.

Meanwhile, the volume of oil escaping the damaged well—originally estimated by BP to be about 1,000 barrels per day but thought by U.S. government officials to be as much as 60 times that amount—formed a slick extending over thousands of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. To clean oil from the open water, dispersants—substances that emulsified the oil, thus allowing for easier metabolism by bacteria—were pumped directly into the leak and applied aerially to the slick. Booms to corral portions of the slick were deployed, and the contained oil was then siphoned off or burned. As oil began to contaminate Louisiana beaches in May, it was manually removed; more difficult to clean were the state’s marshes and estuaries, where the topography was knit together by delicate plant life. By June, oil and tar balls had made landfall on the beaches of Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama

, and by July oil had reached the shores of Texas

. Thousands of oil-plastered birds, mammals, and

mammals

sea turtles were transported to rehabilitation centres; countless fish and smaller sea life perished. The various cleanup efforts were coordinated by the National Response Team, a group of government agencies headed by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Human impacts

With many residents of Gulf Coast states dependent on fishing and tourism to support themselves, economic prospects for the region were dire. More than a third of the gulf was closed to fishing due to fears of contamination, and few travelers were willing to face the prospect of petroleum-sullied beaches. Following demands by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, BP—which was already spending millions of dollars for cleanup efforts daily—created a $20 billion compensation fund for those affected by the spill.